


your reason

by waveydnp



Series: byebye 20gayteen daily fic advent [12]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Depression, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Suicidal Ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 22:48:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16962939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waveydnp/pseuds/waveydnp
Summary: prompt: it’s late 2018 and dan hasn’t had an especially bad day in a long time... until now (h/c)





	your reason

If you stare at something long enough, it changes. Doesn’t matter what it is, the longer you stare the more you see, even if your eyes never move, even if the thing being stared at never moves.

Nothing stays the same, not to the eye of the beholder, and really, isn’t that what counts?

Yeah, a ceiling doesn’t actually change in the span of the few hours you might stare at it, but it’ll feel like it does. It’ll look like it does, so basically, it does.

What is the world, what is life, if not what it looks like to you?

The ceiling looks like a blank canvas when you look up from the soft prison cell of your bed. It’s off white and flat and the cold light of a grey winter day falls across it uniformly. It’s a ceiling, for fuck’s sake, and not even an interesting one at that.

Just a ceiling when you give up trying to feel like a human and flop down onto your mattress because it’s more comfortable than the floor and your boyfriend will judge you if he finds you on the ground. You’re meant to have moved past that.

You’re meant to have moved past all of this. You’re meant to be able to handle the days you can’t feel anything, the days you’d be glad to step in front of a train or ‘accidentally’ fall off your balcony. You’re meant not to consider thoughts like this as anything other than horrifying.

Right now they’re comforting. This nothingness doesn’t have to be forever. There is always a way out. 

You’re not going to do it. You know you’re not. But the knowledge that you _could_ feels like the one bit of control you have left, so you cling to it. Cling as you stare up at the ceiling and feel time pass sticky and slow.

Cling as you watch the ceiling change. Your eyes don’t move from the spot directly above your head. Maybe you blink, maybe you don’t. Probably you do, otherwise your eyes would shrivel and up and you’d go blind so ok, technically yes, your eyes move. But not in any way that actually affects what you see.

Your eyes are rooted to the same spot because to move them would take energy and that’s one thing you definitely do not have to spare today. Today any little bit of energy you have is reserved for keeping yourself from hurting him any more than you already have. So you stare at the ceiling and watch shapes appear and disappear, watch the tricks your brain plays on your eyes if you keep them trained on the same spot for long enough. 

What is your life, if not what it feels like to you?

Today it feels like a punishment. Today it feels like a gaping hole, an inky black void into which all hope, all meaning, all feeling disappear until all that’s left is a husk, a meat sack with eyes, a vessel which exists only to remind you of the depths of your uselessness. 

So then, life isn’t even pain. Life is _wishing_ you could feel pain. Life is numb, life is all your nerves clipped, life is watching yourself bleed out and not even being capable of accessing the will to give a shit about it.

You know your bed is soft and your flat is nice and you can afford anything in life you could reasonably want. You know there are people, lots of fucking people who love you, love you more than you could ever possibly deserve.

Maybe that’s worse. Because you definitely don’t deserve them. Today you’re definitely hurting them just by being what you are. 

A burden. A drain on all things good. A selfish fucking asshole who just takes and takes and then _still_ ends up lying in bed and staring up at the ceiling.

Life goes on while you’re lying here, you know. The world doesn’t stop just because you’ve got some wonky chemistry in your brain. It’s not going to wait for you. And it’s not going to put on its kid gloves.

Life’s gloves have spikes. Life’s gloves won’t stop just because you’re down on the ground with blood in your mouth. They’ll hold you down and keep you there just because it’s easier.

If you want to get up you’re going to have to fucking hit back. 

You want to hit back. 

Or. Well… You did.

Usually you do. Usually, lately, you’re hitting back with all you’ve got. And you manage to dodge a lot of the punches. 

But not today, motherfucker. Today you’re gonna lie there and take what life gives you. You’re going to get beaten into the ground and stare at the ceiling while your partner does all the work that needs to be done to keep you where you are.

You don’t deserve him. You don’t even deserve the air you’re breathing.

But you’re going to keep sucking it in because you’re selfish. You always have been.

You can hear his footsteps in the hall. They’re getting closer, aren’t they?

You know he’s coming to check on you, right? You know it’s going to hurt him immensely to see you like this. 

You know he doesn’t understand. He tries, but he can’t understand this. No one can understand this but the ones who feel it too.

And he doesn’t. His bad days are different from yours. You don’t understand his bad days either. You pride yourself on knowing him like no one else could, but it’s all a lie, isn’t it? You’re just pretending. You’re pretending to understand each other so you can beat back life’s punches. 

You two are doing better than most. At least you’re still trying.

But you’re not trying today, are you? Today you’re a useless sack of shit rotting away on the bed you share with a man who deserves better.

“Dan?” he says. He can tell right away. You must be really rubbish today. Usually it takes him longer to clue in. 

You grunt. Nice. Can’t even give him the small mercy of actual speech.

He sits. He brushes your greasy hair off your greasy forehead. God, he loves you.

He loves you for real. Don’t fuck this up, mate. Say something. Reach out for him.

You can’t. Because in this moment you actually don’t care. You can’t feel anything. You’re a meat sack with eyes. And greasy hair.

He’s still here, though. He’s touching your face. He loves you.

He’s pulling you up. He’s saying something but your ears are filled with static. You let him pull you out of bed and down the hall to the bathroom.

You let him strip you naked and put you in the shower. He puts shampoo in your hand and you rub it into your hair because that’s what you do with shampoo, isn’t it?

Your muscle memory tell your hands to rub the soap he puts into them over the bits of you that smell bad. 

Your eyes sting when shampoo rinses down your face. You close them tight and think, hey, maybe I call feel something after all.

He wraps a towel around you and fetches you your favourite comfy clothes. He does know you. He does. He doesn’t have to understand you to know you. He doesn’t have to internalize your shit to know how to take care of you.

You follow him to the kitchen. He gives you water and a protein bar that’s been sat in the cupboard for like a year. You can’t tell if it tastes like chalk because it’s old or because anything would taste like chalk to you today. You eat it all because you like the way he smiles at you every time you swallow down another mouthful. 

If you like his smile does that mean you’re feeling something? Does that mean life will stop pounding into your already bruised and battered ribs soon?

He asks you if your head hurts. You say yes because you can’t tell and a little ibuprofen never hurt anybody and better safe than sorry, right?

He sits you down on the sofa in the lounge and wraps a blanket around you, the warm fuzzy one that makes you look like a sad pimp. You say thank you.

You say thank you.

He kisses your temple. He tells you he loves you and tomorrow will be better before he sets up Breath of the Wild and starts playing.

He doesn’t know tomorrow will be better. Maybe it won’t. 

But there will be a tomorrow. There will. Because of him. 

He’s your reason today. And people will tell you that’s unhealthy. People will tell you to live for yourself, to live because you owe yourself the chance to experience life’s beauty.

Today that’s a pile of horseshit. Today your reason is him and you think it’s pretty fucking shitty of anyone to tell you what your own goddamn reason should be. 

You stare at the telly. The picture is constantly changing. The images mean nothing to you, you can’t make sense of them, but you stare at them long enough that you start to see hints of colour again. You hear his fingers on the buttons. You hear him curse when he fucks something up. You hear him laugh when he gets something right.

You cling to your reason. You cling to your reason because he tells you that tomorrow there will be more reasons. 

There might not be. Maybe not tomorrow… but someday. Hopefully someday soon.

You’ve made it this far, right?


End file.
